


the plan

by bloodandcream



Series: Ship all the Ships [143]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, angst like whoa, fledgling hunter Bobby and mentor Rufus, with a smidge of frottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 09:35:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11010747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” Bobby tells the carpet at his feet.Rufus grunts, inelegantly ties off the stitches in Bobby’s forehead pulling them tight. Stepping back, he sits down on the bed opposite from Bobby. “Let me tell you something. No one’s really cut out for this kind of stuff. You get better, or you get killed.” Settling the first aid kid on his lap, tucking the needle away and pulling out a bottle of something, Rufus shrugs. “You can go home if you want. Those are your options. Go home. Or get better at it.”





	the plan

Bobby does his damndest to not wince as he clenches his jaw and stares at the blood smeared shirt Rufus is wearing. Rufus isn’t gentle, but he’s steady and quick as he pokes a needle through Bobby’s forehead, sewing up a sluggishly bleeding gash.

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” Bobby tells the carpet at his feet.

Rufus grunts, inelegantly ties off the stitches in Bobby’s forehead pulling them tight. Stepping back, he sits down on the bed opposite from Bobby. “Let me tell you something. No one’s really cut out for this kind of stuff. You get better, or you get killed.” Settling the first aid kid on his lap, tucking the needle away and pulling out a bottle of something, Rufus shrugs. “You can go home if you want. Those are your options. Go home. Or get better at it.”

Bobby thinks about tucking tail and calling it done. He doesn’t like killing things, but it’s necessary. When it’s a deer in the woods, it’s dinner, it’s nothing personal. But ghosts and vampires, things that still look human, he’s having a hard time.

So what if he went back home? It’s still sitting there in Sioux Falls, waiting for him. The mortgage has been paid off since his parent’s parents bought it. The only thing the place is collecting is dust and property taxes. But he can’t think about it without thinking about Karen, her presence still a tangible thing there, all the imprints of a life she’d left behind. The curtains she sewed, the wallpaper she picked out. Even the goddam casserole dishes Bobby had spent extra on for the flower pattern she liked.

Her body is salted and burned and spread through the back forty. First thing Rufus taught Bobby. How important the salt and burn is.

He doesn’t want to go back. Not yet.

Besides, even if he doesn’t like it, he sees how necessary hunting is. To keep that sort of tragedy from happening. What happened to Karen, what would happen to the people and the families and the communities that monsters haunt.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bobby tells Rufus when he looks up. 

Rufus eyes him, blots disinfectant on a clean gauze pad. Leans across the space and tells him, “Good,” before pressing it onto Bobby’s forehead and it burns like a son of a bitch.

The door to the room next to them slams, sounds of their temporary neighbors coming through the thin walls and Bobby lets it distract him for a moment. His whole face feels swollen, crusted with dried blood even though the cut wasn’t too bad, as he’s learning, head wounds always bleed like a son of a bitch. Sitting uselessly on the edge of his bed, hunched over his lap with arms rested on his thighs, Bobby listens to the room next door as they clatter around. Rufus starts humming, off-key humming as he packs away the first aid kit.

“Well Bobby,” Rufus says as he pulls a bottle out of his duffel bag and drops heavily back onto the bed, “You know what a near death experience means.”

Bobby frowns and rolls his shoulders, stiff and aching. “What’s that?”

Holding up the cheap whiskey, Rufus flashes a white smile at him, earring jangling as he leans forward. “Time to celebrate.”

-

They get blindingly drunk together. It doesn’t take much for Bobby. He’d sworn off the stuff years ago, when he made Karen his wife. Didn’t want to turn into his old man. Not like it makes a difference now.

Besides, he can recognize a coping mechanism when he sees one. He’s not an idiot. Rufus usually has a few beers after a hunt. But this is something else. This one was a close call, and maybe Rufus really thought that Bobby would leave.

Rufus holds the bottle carefully, drinks slowly, shares it evenly with Bobby.

The room is half a wreck from their quick preparations for a hunt that went a lot faster than either of them expected, and still half neat from check in that morning with the beds tucked up. All the other cases Bobby’s been on with Rufus had taken days of preparation and research.

Maybe that’s why he feels so off kilter.

Rufus seems a little off too, muted from his usual caustic humor. So Bobby keeps him in drinking company and they polish off the bottle together, ending up on one bed to pass it between them as they slump and meander their way around conversation that’s far off from anything hunting related.

If he’s being honest with himself, Bobby’s not sure if he’ll ever be ready to go back home, back to Sioux Falls. But of course, he never thought he’d be good for much at all after Karen.

Rufus has changed that.

-

Shoes have been kicked off, sheets pushed to the edge of the bed in a pile, for the ease of passing a bottle back and forth they’ve settled together. Rufus has pulled the curtains closed against the harsh white neon glare of the motel’s sign, and Bobby’s slapped off the bedside lamp too because he might have been crying and no one needed to see that.

He’s not sure where the bottle is right now, but his hands are settled instead on the warm soft skin of Rufus’ side, just up under his shirt a little bit. It’s comforting to feel him breathing, right there.

They’re both quiet and Bobby’s not sure if they’re supposed to be pretending to sleep or if he should roll out of bed, maybe clean the blood off his face better and the dried nervous sweat off his skin, but his body aches and it’s warm here. Steady. Quiet. Easy enough to pretend that maybe he has fallen asleep, although his dreams haven’t been so calm in a long time.

Rufus stretches, arm underneath Bobby’s neck tensing and curling tighter against his shoulders. Shifting higher on the bed, Rufus tucks his chin over Bobby’s head, pulls him closer. Shirt rough against the raw skin of Bobby’s forehead, he doesn’t care as he presses in tight, pushing against the outward swell when Rufus breathes, feeling the pace of his heartbeat pick up through skin and cotton and it’s soothing. Easy.

Drunk and unsteady, Bobby skitters his hand up higher under Rufu’s shirt, around his back to spread against the shift of muscle there while they move, again, one of Bobby’s legs finding it’s way between Rufus’ thigh and he digs his fingers in to keep him here, close.

Bobby can feel him, hard through his jeans, hips juddering with slight start-stops and Bobby doesn’t want that stop part, so he starts too. It’s really not that difficult. He doesn’t think he’s ever thought about it before, on the months they’ve been on the road together, one hunt and a few pointers turning into another case just a few counties over, then another, and another. Bobby was just trying to hold on because he wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself if he were alone.

He never really thought that Rufus might be trying to hold on too, cranky ass that he is, but he closes his arms tight around Bobby as if they could press any closer to each other, breath picking up faster. Bobby might be having a hard time getting any air with his face mashed to Rufus’ chest but that’s fine. It’s dark and warm and quiet. He lets it happen.

-

Bobby feels like shit left out on a sidewalk to bake in the sun then scraped up and hurled in the trash, by the time he wakes up the next morning. The curtains are flung open, sunlight streaming in cheerfully bright and it’s downright offensive. Blinking crusty eyes around the wreck of the room, the daylight highlights how run down the dump is. Staining on the walls, cigarette burns in the carpet.

The weapons had been cleaned and sorted last night, laid out neatly on the table. Their clothes make crumpled dunes at the foot of the bed, beside it, on the chair in the corner. Bobby’s canvas duffel bag lies open on the desk across from the bed, far wall, contents spilling out.

The second bed is still tucked neat and crisp. Undisturbed.

Swinging his feet over the side of the bed, grouchily pushing tangled blankets aside then pulling them back over his lap when he realizes he’s naked, Bobby groans and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. They throb in time with his pulse. Throat raw, mouth dried out tasting like the monster they killed last night had died in it, there’s something dried in the hair across his belly that pulls at them when he shifts.

God he’s only been on a few hunts with Rufus, was actually starting to like the cranky bastard but don’t ever tell him that, and things are shot to hell.

What an idiot.

It was nice while it lasted, but Bobby figures he’s stubborn enough and tough enough to try and keep up the hunting on his own. Monsters ain’t gonna get any deader if he’s too scared to find them without Rufus. He might find his way back to Sioux Falls someday, but not yet.

The faint shushing noise in the background quiets abruptly and Bobby realizes he can hear Rufus’ god awful singing voice, out of tune like a deaf opera singer. That wasn’t hangover static rattling around in his head, it was the shower. He feels kind of like a teenage girl for sitting there worrying that Rufus must of split.

It’s obvious he didn’t. With the mess they made still left all over the place.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, scratching through the bristle of his beard that flakes red, Bobby heaves himself up to at least get some boxers on. Everything tip-tilts and it feels like all his bad decisions are sloshing around inside his skull.

Rufus comes out of the bathroom, steam billowing behind him. Chest bare, jeans unbuttoned, and smiling offensively bright for how much of an ass Bobby feels like. Rufus stops in the middle of the room and takes one look at Bobby, still fumbling to pull his boxers on.

“Bobby, you look like shit scraped off the sidewalk.”

“Well don’t sugarcoat it.” Bobby grimaces as he swipes a hand over his stomach, scratching off a mess he doesn’t want to think about.

“Have I ever? Ain’t gonna start now.” Kicking aside piles of dirty clothes, Rufus paws through his duffel bag for a clean shirt. “Better be quick in the shower, I’m not cleaning all this up myself and check out’s at ten.”

Dumb and too hungover to make sense of it, Bobby decides if Rufus is gonna play the casual card he can too. “What’s the plan?”

Rufus pulls his shirt on and makes his way over to Bobby, sniffs the air exaggeratedly and wrinkles his nose. “After you shower, breakfast. Then I was thinking,” Rufus grins broadly, eyes bright and way too clear in the daylight of aftermath, “Do you want to find the next hunt?”


End file.
